


if we start dreaming now

by Imkerin



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Extra Treat, Ficlet, Infidelity, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imkerin/pseuds/Imkerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eh?" Miro says, startled, and looks down. Right above the circle of Philipp's fingers, there's a faint bluish-black smear across the inside of his forearm, like a bruise that's just starting to come in, none of the yellowing of a healing one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if we start dreaming now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prompt_fills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prompt_fills/gifts).



Philipp notices it first, which is more than a little embarrassing later on. At the time, though, it doesn't seem like much of anything to either of them: it's the last training before winter break, and Miro's peering into the mirror and running some gel through his freshly washed hair when Philipp catches his other wrist, gently, and says "Have you got that looked at yet?"

"Eh?" Miro says, startled, and looks down. Right above the circle of Philipp's fingers, there's a faint bluish-black smear across the inside of his forearm, like a bruise that's just starting to come in, none of the yellowing of a healing one. It's odd, because he doesn't remember catching his arm on anything recently. He wipes his hand off on the towel and pokes at it gently. It's not sore. A bit tender, maybe, but not like what a bruise that size would feel like if it were really bad. "No, not yet."

"Hm," says Philipp, letting go of him and shouldering his duffel. "Well, happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas," Miro echoes with a nod, watching him make his way out the door and then glancing down at his arm again before dismissing it.

 

For a week or so he doesn't think much of it: he may be on break, but it's always a job and a half to run after the twins, even when it isn't nearly Christmas. In the December cold his sleeves keep it hidden most of the time, and he really oughtn't let 'out of sight, out of mind' apply to things like this, but it had seemed like nothing worth bothering with. It isn't til Christmas night, the boys finally exhausted and asleep at the same time, that he gets a moment to himself to relax, leaning against the tiled wall of the shower. He raises his hand to brush water out of his eyes and the bruise is still there, unfaded, darker. Clearer. "What," he says -- yelps, really, loud enough to wake Sylwia out in the bedroom.

She makes a sleepy inquiring noise, not quite his name, that he can barely even hear over the roar of the shower and the dizzy rush of blood in his ears, because it's not a bruise at all, it's a Mark. Nearly the same color as the tattoo he’d gotten a while back, even the same _pattern_ curling up from underneath his skin in loops and swirls around it, but the word in the center isn't Luan, or Noah, or even the Sylwia he had been sure for years would eventually turn up despite the odds: it's Lukas.

He turns off the water, fumbling with the knobs a little, wraps his towel one-handed around his waist without thinking about it, and then just stands there, dripping on the floor and staring at the impossible. Because it is impossible, this is something that can’t be happening to him. The last time he saw Lukas was during international break, and nothing-- nothing had _happened_ between them. Nothing like this, not for a long time, since before Lukas had left for Köln and--

“Miro?” Sylwia calls again. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, fine,” he says. Somehow his voice doesn’t break, doesn’t even waver. “I’ll be in in a minute.” And he’ll tell her, eventually. She deserves to know, at least, even if they can keep it from reporters, from the rest of the world, just -- not yet. Not on Christmas, even if -- he crosses to the counter, checks the clock on his phone-- even if it isn’t technically Christmas anymore.

He has Lukas’s number entered and the empty text box staring up at him before he realizes what he’s doing. He types, _Do you have_ and deletes it. _Have you seen_ \-- deleted. Eventually he sends just _Happy Christmas_ , puts the phone down, and switches his towel for his bathrobe. How he’s going to sleep, he doesn’t know.

 

The next morning he wakes up as tired as if he hadn’t slept at all, a headache gnawing slowly away, gets everyone fed and out the door, feeds himself, and finally, in the strange silence of the empty house, checks his messages. Lukas has sent him a string of mostly incomprehensible emoji in reply and it makes him want to lie back down. He checks his wrist again instead, pushing his shirtcuff up and revealing inch after inch of blue crawling up his skin. 

What if it’s a different Lukas, he thinks for half a second, but he knows as soon as the thought flashes past that it isn’t, it can’t be. He _knows_ , in that same deep, simple way that he’d first known he’d loved Sylwia. “Damn,” he mumbles, under his breath out of habit even though there’s no one there to hear, and goes to make another pot of coffee.

It helps, some, the heat settling into his stomach like artificial courage, easing the ache in his skull. There’s nothing good that can come of putting it off, he knows that, but it’s still one of the hardest things he’s done in a while, picking up the phone again and pressing call.

“Hey Miro,” Lukas says, picking up after not nearly enough rings. He sounds cheerful, almost obnoxiously so, and Miro feels himself smiling without meaning to, just hearing it. Damn it, he thinks again.

“Hey, Lukas,” he says back, then-- he doesn’t know what else to say. How do you ask this sort of thing, the kind of thing that could break two families and ruin two careers? It’s Lukas, it’s just Lukas, and he must know, too, it must have happened to him, but the words just won’t come.

"So," Lukas says, drawing it out, that unvoiced laugh still there, like always, like normal. Miro shuts his eyes. "How are you? How was Christmas, how are the boys?"

"Fine," he says, answering all of them at once, takes a breath, opens his mouth again, and says: "I'm leaving next year, I won't extend." It isn't what he'd meant to say, it isn't even related to either the conversation they are having or the one they ought to be having, he hasn't even really _talked_ about it in for-sure terms with anyone else except Sylwia and Alexander.

"Oh." There's a bit of a pause as Lukas takes that in; then he snorts a little. "I can't blame you there. It's not really everything they talk it up to be, is it?" He sounds a bit wistful, though, and Miro-- Miro can understand that, or is it that he can feel it? He glances convulsively down at his wrist again, resting on the kitchen table, safely covered. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know," Miro says, because it isn't certain yet and he doesn't want-- "Somewhere else, not the Bundesliga, I think. Somewhere different."

"You know better than me, eh?" Lukas says, but he's only teasing, though Miro wonders, his headache creeping slowly back, whether he isn't wrong, wonders how much of Lukas's fond pokes are friendly and how many might be more, and for how long. And he wonders whether he isn't going absolutely crazy, overanalyzing someone who's always been as openhearted as Lukas. "Somewhere different... well, keep me posted."

"I will," Miro says. He rubs the back of his neck, working at the tension that just doesn’t want to leave. "How was your Christmas?"

"Good." He sounds happy again, like he means it, which makes Miro feel perversely guiltier. "It's good to be home, even if maybe _somewhere different_ has its points. But -- listen, Miro, I know you’ve done this before, more than me, but if there’s something I can do...?”

Miro’s lips feel dry; he licks them but it doesn’t help. “Can I see you?” he says abruptly, because this whole thing must be easier face to face, where he’d be able to just show Lukas what’s happened instead of trying to explain something he can barely believe in himself, where they could see for themselves whether it’s real. He immediately realizes it sounds like a different proposition, one he didn’t quite mean to make; the possibility of it shivers ice-cold through him anyway. “Ehm, I--”

“Yes,” Lukas interrupts. “Of course. Always.”

It stops his stammer dead, stealing his air like a shoulder to the gut as a wave of strange bright hope crashes through him. He thinks some of it is his; he hopes some isn’t. “Good,” he says, when he feels like he can breathe again. “That’s good, I’ll-- I’ll catch a flight.”

“I’ll be here,” Lukas says.

Miro believes him.


End file.
